Yeah. Like, all the important parts. A 45-year relationship – gone. What’s more, no one remembers HER, either. So all the friends, acquaintances, everyone – also gone. All alone in the world. Pretty awful.

Yeah, but remember, an awful large percentage of that time is spent stuck in a bottle. And much of the rest was probably at the beck and call of a sultan or two. This could well have been the first (and now only) decent relationship of her life.

Ok, the “All humans forget about her” has been established as a penalty for forbidden magics in the IDOJ movie, but taking Rouyaa’s memories of Andy away? Might as well just make her forget that she was ever anything but a mortal human while they’re at it.

“To be forgotten is worse than death” – Freya Crescent, Final Fantasy 9
Kazom is at least being as “humane” as possible with this, with helping her to relocate to a new place.

When Kazom said that no one will now remember her and vice versa (except for himself apparently), would that include other genies like Guano and Haji too? Will Guano forget who it was that gave him that bad advice?

Well… Shit. I mean, I can understand losing her powers, but splitting her off from someone she cares about, cutting out part of who she IS, and just leaving her with the knowledge that even if she meets him again she’ll never know, because of what happened with someone else under entirely different circumstances? That’s COLD. I have to agree with Kattgirl, it’d be kinder to kill her.

I was thinking that she would lose her powers, become a mortal, and grow old along with Andy, eventually becoming the elderly Mrs Eden. But at least she’d have some 50+ years of good memories with him, magic or no.

But now, if she does wind up being Mrs. Eden, I would understand why that character always has the empty, lonely & forlorn look she does. What a tragic end to a fun story.

Unless – I wonder – if Jean and Neal can turn this around? Maybe? Please, CD, can you pull a rabbit out of this crummy old hat?

Oh geez, and that’s a line I already re-wrote for a different problem. FAIL!

I’m assuming that “you / he” flub is a combination of Rouyaa already having been on a rant against Kazom from the previous page, plus more than a little denial. She’s the 23rd concubine, after all. Why would Haji do something so terrible to her, one of his favored? It must have been Kazom! (That might be what’s going through her head).

This is too much. I understand taking her powers and leaving her mortal. But to erase her memory and the memory of her Master? Now that is going way too far! Her living out her days with him would have been romantic, but this is too tragic for such a cute genie!

Haji needs some hot karma coming his way! If I ever become a web comic, and I get my hands on him!!!! Grr!!!

Seems to me that if they’re going to have such a harsh rule to begin with, then they should have some elementary precautions in place to keep accidents from happening. Like if someone wants to format a hard drive, they have to confirm that yes, they really want to do so – and the default option is always ‘no’.

In this case, it would be having the wish held in abeyance until confirmed when it conflicts with another rule.

I agree that the punishment was much too severe, but it wasn’t “worse than death”. It’s not like all her memories were taken away. Just the ones from the past 30 or so years, and only relating to Andy and anyone she met as a result.

That being said, I suspect their reasoning was something like “she should have gotten those compulsory wishes out of the way; since she didn’t, it’s her fault”. It’s the kind of self-righteous reasoning people use all the time when blaming others for problems they had a hand in. Personally, given that one of Neil’s wishes was invalidated, I don’t see why they couldn’t just have done it that way (aside from the little problem of how Jean would have gotten Rouyya’s bottle).

And doggone it, he’s a nerd! He got a beautiful woman as his companion (don’t know if things went beyond that). Now he’s alone, and on the far side of middle age. He’s going to be terribly lonely, and not know why!

===

And on top of all this, Haji’s going to make Guano a Lord. Haji is not on my nice list right now.

Hmmm. A thought. Relocated to California. Rouyaa is a woman now, but a young woman. Do we know any characters from California who’ve appeared in this strip before and perhaps in another strip as well? (You do remember that Kazom is in California in the present, don’t you?)

And now we come to the next question: How did that bottle get back to California? Or did it ever leave Cocoa Beach?

Hmm, Melvin’s mother perhaps? Is that your implication? It does sort of fit. Bottle genies are nurturers and caretakers by nature, and Melvin’s mom is a nurse . . . No, the timeline isn’t right. Assume a nominal age of 20 for Rouyaa in 1980, with Melvin being about 15 now, that would mean he was born when Rouyaa is 40ish. OK, not impossible, but a stretch. And, she seems too young in the Melvin comics.

Ok, stupid possibility here: the timing is almost exactly right for Rouyaa to end up being JEAN’S mother, thus making Jean destined to be a Genie all along (and already having a link to his mother’s bottle).

The only hard data we have on the “now” of Jeanie Bottle is in #94 when Jean tells Melvin she’s only 23 and Melvin tells him that I Dream of Jeannie “aired” 27 years before she was supposedly born. That’s 50 years ago. IDOJ aired from 1965 through 1970, so the “now” has to be some time between 2015 and 2020. Jean would have been born some time between 1992 and 1997. If Rouyaa was de-genied in 1980 at an effective human age of 20, she would have been between 32 and 37 when Jean was born, quite plausible. But Andy would have been much older. Even if Rouyaa and Andy got back together, he would have been in his eighties when Jean was born.

Is Rouyaa Jean’s grandmother? There doesn’t seem to be enough time here for that unless Andy and Rouyaa had Jean’s parent before Rouyaa was punished. It seems unlikely that Andy would forget how he got a kid, or incredibly cruel if he forgot he had a kid, or worse. (This, incidentally, was a giant plot hole in the reunion movie.)

Is Rouyaa Ms. Eden? If Rouyaa was effectively 20 in 1980, she doesn’t seem old enough as Ms. Eden, who at best seems to be in her late sixties. Of course, if she was mortal-ized at an older age, then maybe.

It is an extremely harsh penalty for the supposed crime that Rouyaa has committed. But, definitely finale and absolute and there is no debate as to what going to happen either. I see a possibility of a few more post on this arc, before it over. Because, everyone going to want to see what happens to Rouyaa, because, everybody still kind of routing for her.

I’m sorry folks, but I can’t board the ‘Haji is a MONSTER’ train here. Rouyaa’s been a bad girl and a worse genie and now her chickens have come home to roost.

As ranck said, she had multiple warnings. The first concerned messing with WWII, which she willfully defied (I’ll get to that in a minute) within minutes of hearing it. She also got an example presented to her later (what happened to Eevi), so she KNEW that Haji meant business. The next warning (concerning the humans’ space endeavors) came with a reminder of the example and a third warning (‘Don’t let this be you!’) and while it took longer for her to defy it, as a genie she should have a better memory concerning ‘Genie Business’ (how else is she gonna remember how many wishes she fulfilled) so “She forgot about the warning(s).” shouldn’t be an excuse.

Oh and SPEAKING of how may wishes she fulfilled for Andy the running tally is: none! Check out panel 2:

That’s right, THREE! She clearly doesn’t count either Andy’s wish for Sid to be safe (which she shouldn’t, since that was a hypothetical wish to begin with) or his wish for a bigger budget (which she shouldn’t, since the wish wasn’t directed to her) as wishes, which means that everything that she’s done that’s gotten her into trouble has been of HER own will, not his. There was no ‘accidental’ poofing up the papers to keep Sid off the front lines, that was just her using magic and hoping Andy didn’t catch her. “I was just fulfilling my master’s wishes.” doesn’t apply here.

Also Rouyaa, when you’re caught with your hand in the cookie jar, is it REALLY a good idea to tell the one explaining your punishment that you’re gonna do it again as soon as you master gives you an excuse?

I feel sorry for Andy. He’s gonna be missing a big part of his life and not know why (I could see him becoming a couch potato, watching I Dream of Jeanie as a desperate way to reconnect with her and not knowing why), but Rouyaa made her bed and now has to sleep in it.

I think that the reason that Haji took away her memories, and Andy’s memories of her, was to prevent her and Andy from committing suicide together. Hence the reference to Hitler and Eva Braun, who did commit suicide. From the perspective of an inhuman creature such as a High Genie Lord, this may be a kindness.

It is important to remember that, as Lord of all Genies, Haji is easily powerful enough to utterly enslave all mortals forever, and dominate the world. And yet, he chooses to use his power only to prevent Genies from abusing their powers too very much. He is very harsh, and I hate this judgment of his, but a monster? I do not think so.

Eevi and her boytoy didn’t commit suicide because Evie lost her magic and became mortal, they committed suicide because three wishes weren’t enough to keep them from losing the war (it looks like the only reason Hitler got as far as he did in the Ruudverse was because Eevi was using her magic to help him out). Andy doesn’t have Adolph’s ambitions, but he does want NASA to succeed in it’s goals – goals that Haji doesn’t want Genies interfering with. And Rouyaa has THREE wishes to grant – and while I think that she’ll let Andy know that she’s lost her magic, I don’t think she’s gonna let Andy know that those wishes are still on the table. Why should she?

If Haji had just left her there and not messed with their memories, I could see a more relaxed Andy innocently making wishes in her presence – wishes that her genie magic would fulfill (out of his sight, of course) with effects ranging from trivial to history-making, and apparently Haji couldn’t stop her wishes fro being granted. No she or Andy had to be taken out of the picture, and this was the least messy way to do it.

Okay, after rereading the comments I’m finally staring to see why everyone’s on the Haji hate train, but you’re mistaken: Haji didn’t remove her memories of Andy, Sid, and vice versa as punishment for flaunting Haji; stripping her of her powers was punishment for flaunting Haji. Removing her memories of Andy, Sid, and vice versa was to prevent her from abusing the the one power Haji couldn’t strip from her: her wish-granting abilities!

Like she said in panel 2, she’s still Andy’s genie and she still has THREE wishes to grant him. Wishes that might be easier to grant if he thinks that Haji’s stripped Rouyaa of her genie-hood (which wouldn’t be a lie by the way), so he no longer has to mind what he says around her when it comes to the phrase “I wish…”

So Rouyaa is still a potential threat, a loaded gun with three bullets literally waiting for Andy to ‘pull the trigger’. What can Haji do about that?

Well, he could kill her!

She has no way of defending herself, so Haji (or Kazom, or Guano) can bump her off in as pretty or as messy a method as he sees fit and just leave the corpse there. That way, Rouyaa and Andy can serve as object lessons to other Genies who might be thinking that their devotion to their masters trumps Haji’s will.

Or if he’s the type that doesn’t like unnecessary killing, he could ‘Disappear’ her.

Kazom could take her to another place far away, where the odds of meeting Andy again are pretty slim. Of course she’d have to lose her memories of Andy and Sid (and vice versa) to keep them from reconnecting again, but aside from that, It does what is necessary (prevent Rouyaa from granting Andy any wishes) with a minimum of pain.

@ Oruncrest: You’d have a point, EXCEPT that you’re assuming that she can still grant wishes, despite not having any magic powers. That hasn’t been established, yet. And in fact, Kazom’s comments would tend to indicate the opposite; that all she can do is what any other mortal can. (See bottom of panel 2.)

Oruncrest: While you were checking other pages of this comic, you should have checked page 391. You know, where Kazom said, “Your magic, and everything else that makes you a genie” in response to Rouyaa saying “You took away my magic!” In short, every single thing that made her a genie is gone, and now she’s as mortal as any human. In that sense, she’s even worse off than Eevi, who was left with at least some magic and thus could have continued to assist Hitler even if she could no longer grant his wishes.

Indeed, Haji is more like a stern parent with headstrong children.Maybe Rouyaa bent the rules a bit by granting her master some things things that would please him without him actually wishing for it to be so, but she was disobeying Haji’s orders just the same.

The punishment may sound harsh to us, but we don’t know Haji’s specific reasoning yet. Poor Kazom is just the hatchet man here…

You know, the situation you describe could be easily defused, if Kazom or any of the others besides Rouyaa actually talked to Andy, and explained things. Just the fact that she’s still there with THREE wishes left to grant shows that he’s certainly not one to make casual or thoughtless wishes, and if he’s at all like his TV counterpart, likely to be as upset about Rouyaa’s interference in his work (well-meaning as it may be) as Tony generally was with Jeannie’s. If Haji is as long-lived and powerful as he’s been depicted, I’m pretty sure he’d be able to see this for himself, should he be bothered to, and considering how serious he seems to take this matter, he really ought to be bothered to.

Actually, she has already granted two of Andy’s wishes. The first was to wish that Sid stayed safe (“If I did make a wish, I’d wish Sid stayed safe”, p381), and the second was to wish that NASA had a larger budget (“Look, I wish we had the budget to retrofit Enterprise and build another shuttle”, p389). The reason she declared that she still had three wishes to grant is because at that point, she had already started forgetting Andy. If she couldn’t even remember that Andy was male, or where he worked, it’s doubtful that she would remember that she had already granted wishes for him, never mind any of the specific details about said wishes.

So she’s basically a non-entity about to be dumped in the middle of California with no memory of her past – and no one who has any memory of her… wow. No family. No past… hope ‘somewhere nice’ is… well, nice 😛

OK, then; that’s a little better than being a total amnesiac. And yet, still, that’s a 40-plus year relationship that’s gone. That must be a huge chunk out of her life. Not like just missing an evening of heavy drinking.

Possible, but neither Kazom nor anyone else has mentioned that, so it’s without evidence at at the moment.

However, Kazom DID comment about “what Evie did even after losing her powers”, so it’s more likely that Haji is afraid that she would continue to scheme to subvert things even without magic. And given her knowledge of how genies work, that might have been effective.

I just want to congratulate CD Rudd on getting this strip to the point where people are so involved emotionally with these characters, that they would comment so much, and express so much emotion for your creations. As of now, 69 comments, on this strip alone.

It really says a lot that so many people would be moved so much by a character they have known for only a few weeks. So much so, that they would actually be upset with other creations of yours, for being such poopyheads.

I include myself in this number. And I know I am not alone in trying to think of some way to help Rouyaa have her happily ever after! Even if all we can do is attempt to break the emotional 4th wall by sending our combined wishes towards the author’s enlightened pen!

*Sigh* everyone is up in arms over this yet I’m more annoyed at 1 of 2 things:
– The writers logical leaps and writing mistake.
or
– The audience getting up in arms over a simple bait and switch.

Look at chapters 391 & 392’s Summary: We stripped you of your powers and took away your memories because of a wish you granted.

Chapter 389’s Last Panel: “Oh, a birthday wish. The best kind!”

Essentially what’s happened is that on 389 Rouyaa didn’t know what to get Andy for her birthday. Andy ‘wished’ for more cash and a new space ship. But that hasn’t materialized yet. She merely said, “I’ll give Andy a wish for his birthday.”

You could argue, “But Rouyaa intended to grant Andy’s wish for money.” Except that we have no evidence that Rouyaa was going to grant that wish after only 2 panels. Remember in 389 Rouyaa said, “A birthday wish.” Not, “Andy’s wish to give him the money he needs to go to space. Even though I was warned about this I’m going to grant this wish. Consequences be damned.” Kazom and Hajii are simply overreacting to the situation.

Which leads me to believe 1 of 2 conclusions:

#1: The writer fudged the story to move it along quickly. He made a logical leap that will ultimately go unresolved in the storyline and that will be that. However I doubt this, mainly because it’s the lazy way of doing things and, admittedly, after 392 pages I doubt the author is this lazy of a writer. (Though you’re not out of the dog house for at least 20 more pages. Need to be sure, haha).

The more likely conclusion is this:

#2: The writer purposely left this information out. It will ultimately get resolved by Neil and Gene in subsequent chapters, with the hopes of Gene being free from her Genie curse… Which leads me to my last point. This is the beginning of the end for the Jeannie Bottle series.

If my second thought is right, this would lead to a chapter that could resolve a large number of plot threads and story lines fairly quickly-ish. Even giving a lot of characters what they want in the end. Especially gene, who wants to be rid of the genies curse. But this is just a theory on my part (and a bit of a logical leap myself, though one I could see happening).

Also don’t use the argument, “She put the wish in the cake.” That’s just lazy writing and I’ll have no Dues Ex Machina’s on this website.

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So Tl;dr: Either the writer fudged the story or people need to cool there gets. This much time and energy wouldn’t have been invested in a character for there to not be some sort of happy ending.

——————————–

Also I still hope to see Gene suddenly go green genie dress, black hair, lots of Jewelry, and exclaiming, “Darling!” to Neil one day. Was always a fan of Jeannie’s sister in IDOJ.

You really should go back and read the first chapter again, especially strip #4 and strip #6/7. First, it’s apparent that the first three wishes are automatically granted as soon as the master expresses a wish – as evidenced by Jean’s apartment key falling on Neil’s head as a result of his first wish, not to mention the far heavier rulebook falling on his head as a result of the second book. Jeanie was as surprised in both cases as Neil was, and more to the point, both happened immediately after the wish.

Second, per Neil’s second wish (not to be confused with the wish which was invalidated), which didn’t have an “I wish” anywhere in it”, it’s clear that the master only has to express something that they wish for, or even would wish for, and it will be granted, and it will count as one of the three compulsory wishes.

So, it’s clear from those two points that the moment a wish is made, it’s as good as granted. The genie can apparently tweak it to get a particular result, as Rouyaa did with Andy’s first wish, but it will be granted whether or not the genie explicitly acts or not. Sadly, Rouyaa was trapped the moment she overheard Andy making the wish.

I disagree. As you said yourself, there is a rule book bigger than most college textbooks. And I would not be surprised if one of the rules is, “If the king of genie’s says to not grant X, then don’t. Even if your master wishes for it, don’t.” Meaning that under certain circumstances a genie would have some control over whether a wish could be granted or not. This being one of those circumstances.

So that being said, it is very possible that Rouyaa had every intention of following Haji’s orders. And merely had the idea for a birthday wish after overhearing Andy exclaim, “I wish for money for our rocket ship.” It could be a case of Kazom both spying on and overreacting to Rouyaa saying, “A birthday wish…”. But whether I’m right or wrong, we won’t know for several chapters whether I’m right or wrong.

If you remember comic 378. Rouya says,”…EEvi no longer has to follow the orders of her master..” when she learns that Haji has decreed no Genie will interfere with the Human’s war. and Evii Ignored the decree.

Which I believe that means, when Haji commands a genie, “Don’t grant -BLANK- wish.” then that supersede a master’s wish. Leaving it up to the Genie to grant or not grant and face whatever punishment is dished out.

And remember Jean on the fishing boat. She was able to modify the wishes she granted in such a way that it suited her. She didn’t blindly grant it as she did Neil’s Original 3 wishes.

bossrhino: Saying “there might be a rule justifying what I argued in that rulebook” stretches the plausibility of your argument past the breaking point, because it’s little more than an attempt at an ad hoc rescue of your theory from the counterpoints I made against it, and not a very good one at that.

Incidentally, it’s bad form to pretty much ignore every counterpoint someone brings up against your argument and instead go off on a tangent based on something minor they brought up. I mentioned the rulebook (and the earlier key) dropping on Neil’s head to point out that the genie doesn’t have to make a specific effort to grant a given wish. Instead of acknowledging and addressing that point, you imagined that the rulebook might have something in it justifying what you argued and so simply reiterated your argument without addressing the flaws I’d pointed out in it.

@Vimmy Ridge: This is better than bossrhino’s response, but not by a whole lot. It’s certainly possible that she wasn’t required to grant the wish due to the Haji’s command – but there isn’t anything in the genie laws on the Information page stating that, whereas it is clearly stated there that “a genie must make every effort to grant three wishes to their master”. I would be very surprised to find that decrees from the Haji could preempt the Laws of the Great Djinn.

The 3 WISH LAW“A Genie must make every effort to grant three wishes to their master before moving on to another master. However, if the master allows it, a Genie may choose to stay with him or her for as long as the master lives. If a Genie so chooses, they become bound to that master for as long as the master desires them.”

the VERY NEXT LAW on the information page is the INFANTIE WISH LAW,“Genies will not grant infinite wishes. After the 3 Wishes law is are fulfilled for a particular master, a Genie may perform magic at that master’s request, but they are not forced to do so.”

Hence even the Djinn laws, can have laws that counterdict them. And who would have written the laws? My guess… Haji..

And exactly where is the contradiction between the Three Wish Law ans the Infinite Wish Law, Vimmy Ridge? Genies must grant three wishes, and may not grant infinite wishes; genies generally move on to a different master after granting three wishes but may choose to stay bound as long as their master desires it; genies may continue to perform magic for their master after the initial three wishes but cannot be forced to.

None of that is contradictory. And your guess of who wrote the genie laws is just that, a guess. I suggest that you not make the same mistake bossrhino made of making assumptions about the comic based on your theorycrafting.

Rouyaa might be one of Melvin’s grandmothers, especially if Rouyaa is pregnant in this strip. Melvin is in middle school, meaning he’s probably thirteen or fourteen, so Rouyaa’s child won’t be impossibly young to be one of Melvin’s parents. And it adds an extra reason why Kazom, a genie, will watching over a witch’s child. Melvin could have both genie and witch genes.

And an even wilder thought: What if Eevi had a child by her late but not lamented master?